OTN and the ACE Program traditionally organizes a briefing for Oracle ACE Directors (ACED) just before the Oracle Open World (OOW). It is always under a very strict NDA and extremely interesting. This year it was held at the Oracle HQ on Oct 22-23.

I attended the briefing the second time. Last year I started the fan club for Thomas Kurian and the fan club is still on. He is extremely intelligent and I appreciate very much the fact he takes the time from his busy schedule to meet us just before the OOW, I am sure that is the busiest time for him. We heard a lot about different Oracle technologies from the best experts and of course we had time to talk to the other ACED as well. Great event and I cannot wait for next year!

Thank you Roland, Vikki and Jennifer for a great event! I am so happy and honored to be part of this wonderful group of Oracle experts!

I am at the San Francisco airport waiting for my flight to Munich. This OOW was the BEST OOW EVER! I had so much fun… I will write later more but just a quick report now…

On Thursday and Friday I attended the Oracle ACE Director briefing at the Oracle HQ.

On Sunday I was “presenting” in Larry’s keynote on the big screen. Yes, that’s me: the “lady in red” jumping to the “cloud”. That was FUN!

On Monday I got the Devvy award for Database Designing.

On Tuesday I attended the Publisher Seminar the first time (I am working on my second book 😉 but it is still kind of secret so do not tell anybody).

On Wednesday I met Mark Hurd. What makes it SUPER GREAT is that Mark tweeted about our meeting! Thank you Mark! I enjoyed the meeting and I really appreciate you listened what we had to say.

On Thursday I attended the WIT breakfast and signed books.

Great event. I met so many “old” friends, made so many new ones and I learnt a lot. I am so happy and excited. It definitely was worth all the traveling! See you next year again!

Now I am at the Ljubljana airport waiting for my flight home from the amazing tour of SIOUG 2015 and HrOUG 2015.

The HrOUG took place on a beautiful island on Croatian archipelago. I am so calmed by that environment, I simply love the sea.

I had two sessions in the conference and both were extremely well attended. And I especially enjoyed the questions and talking about Data Modeler after my sessions. Thank you for attending! And thank you for your kind feedback 🙂

The HrOUG is famous for its parties, food and drinks. And it did not let us down this time either 😀 Every evening (starting from Monday) there was a party until morning. We did have great fun!

Thank you for letting me attend and speak in this wonderful conference. I really must remember to come back to SIOUG and HrOUG every year!

Now I must run to my plane.

Cheers

Heli

After SIOUG we drove to Rovinj where the HrOUG 20th anniversary conference takes place. It will be held in a huge hotel on an island. The hotel is nice and the room is beautiful but the best was to see Vlado, the vice-president of HrOUG and the organizer of the event ! I have not seen him for a long time. He is wonderful and he always makes everybody feel very welcome. I was too tired after a long day to stay for the party (just dropped by) and therefore I did not have the chance to see Davor (the president of HrOUG) yet, but I am really looking forward to see him tomorrow. As Vlado told me, there will be a big party every night and there is no time to sleep 🙂 But whatever I need my beauty sleep now 😀 Tomorrow I will talk about Data Modeler and how you can compare designs and a database. I might tell a little about reverse engineering too…

I did not realize how much I have missed the HrOUG events! And here I am now, lucky me.

Good night for now,

Heli

It has been some years I was at the SIOUG conference last time and I was extremely glad I could make it this year. I really missed the wonderful SIOUG people! For some reason both SIOUG and HrOUG have always been close to my heart.

The 20th anniversary conference was held in a beautiful town of Portoroz. The conference was two days: Monday and Tuesday. On Monday evening we had a big party with speeches, belly dancers, band and much more. We saw photos from past years and people from those photos were given small gifts. The meal was delicious and the cake was beautiful.

My presentation about database designing using Data Modeler was the last sessions of the last day. I was a bit worried maybe there will not be much people. I worried for no reason: I think there were two seats empty in the whole room 🙂

Thank you so much for attending my session and I hope you enjoyed it and learnt something new. And thank you for making my teenaged son proud of his Mom with your kind comments 😉

Thank you Janez, Elizabeta, Joze, Urban and many more for making the conference such a great event and thank you for letting me come on such a short notice! You are doing a great job!

Cheers

Heli

Not even my family and friends keep track where I travel so I  better tell more detailed 😀

Now I am in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I arrived here yesterday and had a wonderful pizza party with my good friends Joze Senegacnik and Alex Nuijten and of course Joze’s lovely wife Lili. Joze has made this pizza oven himself and the pizzas are the best in the world. Since Alex is also interested in cooking, Joze was teaching him how to make pizzas. And he did learn very well! Excellent pizza!

Now it’s been a slow morning preparing slides, emailing, writing blog posts and packing. Soon we will head to Portoroz where the SIOUG 20th anniversary conference takes place. Congratulations! I will be talking about database designing using Data Modeler. That is one of my favourite topics 🙂 And as usual I will give a copy of my book (http://www.amazon.com/Oracle-Developer-Modeler-Database-Mastery/dp/0071850090) away to one of the participants. With my horrible autograph 😉

I look forward to the conference and meeting many of my SIOUG friends. It’s been too long…

See you all soon!

Heli

Yesterday was a busy day for me.

First I attended the Oracle Technology Day in Estonia and was presenting at the OUGE (Oracle User Group Estonia) track. I think it was a great day! I learnt a lot about Apex and I was able to share my knowledge on database designing and Data Modeler to a big audience. I was surprised how much audience they got the event in such a small country! Well done Ilmar and Oracle Estonia! And thank you everyone who attended my session!

After the event I had a dinner with my friend Ilmar who is the president of OUGE. And then to the airport to attend the IOUG webinar about 12c to Developer… Well if something can go wrong it usually goes when it should not… The taxi was supposed to be at the hotel in 5 min, after 30 min still not there… Finally it arrives and then as fast as we can to the airport. Then the security and finding the lounge (the Tallinn airport is quite nice BTW). Starting my laptop and realizing the plug near me does not work. Moving all my belongings to another place. Connecting to the wi-fi… My laptop says there is an error it cannot be fixed, not able to connect. A little bit of troubleshooting and finally connected. Starting my email to see the link for the webinar. Every 30 days my email asks me to give an extra password (for security reasons) and did it ask for that on that particular moment? Of course it did! Then waiting for the SMS with the password, typing it and starting the email. Luckily the link was easy to find and then just waiting what happens next… Connected! You will not believe how surprised I was! Then I set my webcam on and see myself on the screen 🙂 Oh dear, that is all I can say 😀 Luckily we decided we will not use webcams so problem solved. The webinar was really nice, I had fun! We had a panel of three: Steven Feuerstein, Patrick Barel and me. Alexis from IOUG was a great host for the panel! Thank you everybody for attending! I hope you had as much fun as I did!

Now I am home for two days and then to SIOUG (Slovenia) and HrOUG (Croatia)…

Cheers

Heli

Yesterday I got wonderful news that after all I will be able to attend the 20th anniversary conferences of SIOUG and HrOUG! I have such warm memories of my previous visits that I am more than excited now. This makes my October probably impossible but I will manage, I’m sure.

Oct 7th I will be speaking in Tallinn, Estonia in Oracle Innovation Day (https://eventreg.oracle.com/profile/web/index.cfm?PKWebId=0x2716257259&source=EMEAPM15058233MPP004-EM:SE:IE1:-458959).

Oct 8-9 I will be teaching database design using Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler (http://www.arihovi.com/?kurssi=tietokannan-suunnittelu-data-modelerilla).

Oct 10th I will fly to Slovenia for the SIOUG Conference that will be held in Portoroz Oct 12-13 (http://www.sioug.si/index.php/menu-sioug-2015/vsebine-sioug-2015). Then to Croatia for the HrOUG which will be held in Rovinj in Oct 13-16 (http://2015.hroug.hr/). And in the evening of Oct 16th I will fly back home.

Oct 21st I will fly to San Francisco, USA for the ACE Director briefing at the Oracle HQ and for the Oracle OpenWorld (https://www.oracle.com/openworld/index.html) where I will give two presentations: one whole presentation and one 7 min presentation during the EOUC session “More Than Another 12 on Oracle Database 12c [UGF3190]” on Sunday. After that busy 8 days I will fly home late in the evening of the 29th and will arrive home late in the evening of the 30th.

So that’s about my October 🙂 It will be busy but extremely fun! I hope to see You in October in one of those events! And I will be speaking about Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler and database design in each of these events 🙂

— Heli

In the end of the year I usually make a summary of what has happened during the year and every year it seems to be more exciting that the previous year (which I though was fantastic!). But this year will be a super plus year and I do not know what to do to get next year better 😀

My book came out, I have been speaking in different continents in amazing events, I have learned a lot, I have met a lot of fantastic people,… and much more. BUT… I was elected as the Ambassador for EOUC (EMEA Oracle Users group Community) for the next two years (thank you!!!!) and now I have been nominated as one of the finalists for the Oracle Database Developer Choice Award in Database Design category! This is the first time this award will be given to anybody. I am extremely honored and I am so happy that Oracle is now showing the whole world that they appreciate us database designers! It has been too long that this work has been undervalued. Thank you Steven and the team!

Just like in any election every vote counts! So please, please vote for me: https://community.oracle.com/community/database/awards/db-design-voting .

Thank you for everything and I promise to keep up the work, not because I must but because I simply LOVE it!

— Heli

The traditional Nordic ACE Director Tour was last week in Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden organized by local user groups and sponsored by OTN and the Oracle ACE Program. I was not travelling with the ACED team but I presented in my home country Finland and explained the new features of Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler:

I must say it was fun presenting in Finnish for a change! Thank you for inviting me and thank you for attending my session!

I have done other things locally too, even though I have not been in Finland much lately 🙂

This is an interview in a local IT magazine, TiVi, about my thoughts on user groups and especially OUGF. This interview came out last week.

To my opinion user groups are still needed and they are the best place to learn and to meet people who can help you to perform better in your job. So if you are not a member yet, please join today. If you do not know where to find the user group, I am happy to help! User groups are all about sharing information and helping each others!

— Heli